Commentary - Nahum 3:14-17

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Nahum's prophecy against Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, we are treated to a series of taunts. The prophet, speaking for the Lord, mocks the frantic, last-ditch efforts of a city that is already as good as dead. God has pronounced judgment, and so all of Nineveh's preparations for a siege are nothing more than a bit of theater before the curtain falls. The commands to draw water, strengthen fortifications, and make bricks are dripping with divine irony. God is essentially saying, "Go ahead. Play soldier. Build your little mud forts. It will do you no good."

The central theme here is the utter futility of human self-reliance in the face of divine judgment. Nineveh, the bloody city, the mistress of witchcrafts, had built its empire on pride and brutality. Now, that same pride is evident in their belief that their own engineering and military might can save them. But God will show them that their strength is a vapor. He will send His own agents of destruction, fire and sword, and an army as consuming and numberless as a plague of locusts. The very things they trusted in, their traders and their military leadership, will vanish when the heat is on, proving themselves to be as ephemeral as a swarm of insects on a cold morning that disappears when the sun comes up.

Outline

Context In Nahum

Nahum is a book of divine judgment against Nineveh. It is a follow-up, in a sense, to the book of Jonah. A century or so before Nahum, God had sent Jonah to Nineveh to preach repentance, and much to Jonah's chagrin, they repented. God, in His mercy, relented from the disaster He had planned for them. But a few generations later, Nineveh has returned to her vomit. The repentance was not a lasting one, and the city has resumed its place as the bloody, idolatrous, and tyrannical center of the Assyrian empire. God's patience has its limits.

So Nahum is sent not to call for repentance, but to announce the final, irrevocable sentence of destruction. The book is a magnificent and terrifying poem about the wrath of a holy God. Chapter 3, where our text is found, details the reasons for this judgment, focusing on the city's violence, deceit, and idolatry, which the prophet likens to harlotry. The verses we are considering come at the climax of this denunciation, painting a vivid picture of the city's last moments, where all their frantic activity is shown to be utterly useless before the sovereign decree of God.

Key Issues

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

14 Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!

The tone here is one of high sarcasm. The Lord is taunting Nineveh. Imagine a father watching his five-year-old son building a dam out of mud to stop a coming tidal wave. He might say, "That's right, son, pack that mud down good and tight." The words are encouraging, but the intent is to highlight the utter absurdity of the effort. This is God, the Lord of Hosts, speaking to Nineveh. He is telling them to do all the things that a city under siege would normally do. Store up water. Reinforce the walls. Get the brick-making operation going at full tilt. Why? Because their doom is so certain that their preparations are a joke. Their frenetic activity is simply part of the judgment. God is not just going to destroy them; He is going to mock them in the process. He is going to let them exhaust themselves in their own futile plans, all to demonstrate that salvation is not found in high walls or well-made bricks, but in the Lord alone. Their sin was self-trust, and God is going to judge them by giving them over to that trust and letting them see where it gets them.

15 There, fire will consume you; The sword will cut you down; It will consume you as the locust does. Multiply yourself like the creeping locust, Multiply yourself like the swarming locust.

The word "There" connects this verse directly to the previous one. "In that place of your frantic preparations, right there in your strengthened fortifications, that is where the judgment will fall." The fire will not be stopped by their walls, and the sword will not be turned aside by their preparations. God's judgment is not an external force that can be barricaded out. It is a consuming fire that will devour them from within. The agents are fire and sword, the classic instruments of divine wrath in warfare. But then the prophet switches to a metaphor that will dominate the rest of this section: the locust. Judgment will consume them as a locust swarm consumes a field, leaving nothing behind. The irony continues as God taunts them to "multiply" themselves like locusts. "You think numbers will save you? Go ahead, breed more soldiers. Fill your city. Be as numerous as a plague of locusts." This is a picture of a false, man-made strength. They are to become a swarm, but they will be a swarm destined for consumption by a greater power.

16 You have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven, The creeping locust strips and flies away.

Nineveh was not just a military power; it was a commercial hub. Her traders were everywhere, bringing wealth back to the capital. Their number was like the stars of heaven, an echo of the promise God made to Abraham. But this was a profane, man-centered covenant of wealth. And what is the end of all this commercial activity? It is as fleeting as a locust. The New King James says the locust "plunders and flies away." The wealth they have accumulated through their sharp and often brutal business dealings will be stripped away, and the traders themselves will vanish. They have no loyalty to the city, only to their profit. When the judgment comes, they will not stay to fight. Like a locust that devours a green field and then moves on to the next, these merchants will take what they can and flee, leaving the city hollowed out and defenseless. A commercial empire built on greed has no true foundation. It is a house of cards, and the first gust of God's judgment will bring it down.

17 Your guardsmen are like the swarming locust. Your marshals are like a locust-swarm Encamping in the stone walls on a cold day. The sun rises, and they flee, And the place where they are is not known.

The locust metaphor is now applied to Nineveh's military leadership. Their guardsmen, their commanders, their top brass, are like a swarm of locusts. They look impressive. A swarm of locusts can blacken the sky. But they have a critical weakness. On a cold day, they are sluggish and immobile. They camp on the walls, but they are not effective. Then, when the sun rises, a metaphor for the heat of battle and the dawning of God's judgment, what do they do? They flee. They scatter so completely that no one knows where they went. This is a picture of a complete and total collapse of leadership and morale. The men who were supposed to defend the city will be the first to abandon their posts. Their courage is conditional, dependent on comfortable circumstances. When real trouble comes, when the sun of God's wrath begins to shine, they will melt away. The great Assyrian military machine, the terror of the ancient world, will be shown to be nothing more than a swarm of fair-weather insects.

Application

The message of Nahum to Nineveh is a timeless word to every proud and self-reliant civilization, and to every proud and self-reliant individual. The temptation is always to trust in our own fortifications, our own economic strength, our own military might. We draw our own water for the siege. We make our own bricks. We think that if we just prepare enough, plan enough, and build enough, we can secure our own future.

But God mocks this kind of self-sufficiency. He is the Lord, and He will not give His glory to another. When a nation or a person sets themselves up against Him, He will bring them down. And He often does it by showing them the utter futility of the very things they trusted in. Our wealth will fly away, our leaders will vanish, and our strongest walls will become the very place where the fire of judgment consumes us.

The only true fortification is the Lord Himself. He is, as Nahum says in the first chapter, "a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him" (Nahum 1:7). The lesson of Nineveh is a negative one. It shows us what happens to those who do not trust in Him. Our response should be to flee from the city of destruction, to abandon our trust in our own brick-making, and to run to the only true refuge. The cross of Jesus Christ is the only place where the consuming fire of God's wrath has been satisfied. There, and only there, are we safe from the judgment that is coming upon every proud heart and every rebellious city.